Elephant communication

Individuals of any age and sex will touch each other's mouths, temporal glands, and genitals, particularly during meetings or when excited.

When moving, elephant mothers will touch their calves with their trunks or feet when side-by-side or with their tails if the calf is behind them.

During the latter case, when an elephant bounces the tip of the trunk it creates booms which serve as threat displays.

For Asian elephants, these calls have a frequency of 14–24 Hz, with sound pressure levels of 85–90 dB and last 10–15 seconds.

It is suggested that this research could potentially enable humans to communicate directly with elephants in the future, possibly warning them about dangers such as poachers.

Vocal production mechanisms at certain frequencies are similar to that of humans and other mammals and the laryngeal tissues are subjected to self-maintained oscillations.

Two biomechanical features can trigger these traveling wave patterns, which are a low fundamental frequency and in the vocal folds, increasing longitudinal tension.

[18] Elephants are known to communicate with seismics, vibrations produced by impacts on the earth's surface or acoustical waves that travel through it.

When detecting seismic signals, the animals lean forward and put more weight on their larger front feet; this is known as the "freezing behaviour".

The cushion pads of the feet contain cartilaginous nodes and have similarities to the acoustic fat found in marine mammals such as toothed whales and sirenians.

[20] When detecting the seismics of an alarm call signalling danger from predators, elephants enter a defensive posture and family groups will pack together.

[23] Elephants may go through several steps of investigating the smell of a surface with their trunk before inserting its tip into their mouth to touch the anterior part of their hard palate and thus transfer semiochemicals to the VNO.